Joanna Biggar's Blog

Living Above the Store

If that title conjures “vida tipica” in small town life, then that’s what we’ve got here. Our apartment, directly across from the school in San Joaquin de Flores, is also literally above a small market. In this respect, and most others, this experience is almost opposite from that in Flamingo.

Doug in Front of our Digs in San Joaquin

    For openers,  there are no sea snakes to worry about, nor scorpions in the luggage, nor heatstroke. True, there are also no palm-fringed tropical beaches and white sands, either. What we do have is life in a fairly small town near a larger city (Heredia). And with that the rhythms of life in a small Tico town. We’ve gotten to know the folks who run the store downstairs, including one young man who works there and insists on speaking English because he wants to work in a call center (a relatively new phenomenon here, and a plum job), and Carlos (or Charlie) who’s the apartment manager. He regularly supplies us with new sets of keys that still don’t work on the three various locks and gates we have to pass to come and go. I early on mastered the art of crawling through the window, which seemed an easier course than dealing with the keys.

Yesterday, I called and asked for a mop because the floor needed washing. When we came back, we found the floor had been washed, and Carlos presented us with an new set of keys — this time to a different apartment. So we moved next door, and I  have no idea if this is a result of my very bad Spanish or simply Carlos’s helpful nature. I suspect the latter.

        This weekend we spent an enjoyable, low-keyed time just hanging out in this town. We discovered a coffee field up the street, a neighborhood with charming old-style houses with verandas and (a rarity) sidewalks around them. We found a sort of fried-chicken,  burger sort of place that serves decent wine, two local bars where men (only) seem to pass long and very noisy hours, seemingly unmindful of the church at the other end of the plaza, which seems to be a place full of activity. People playing ball and strolling in front; a wedding  with a full house dressed to the nines, and another packed house at Sat. night mass.

La Iglesia de San Joaquin de Flores

      On the other side of the plaza we also found two institutions of great use to us: a new, family-owned beauty salon-barber shop, and an internet cafe. By the end of the afternoon in the beauty shop, when Doug had wandered in and gotten shorn too, we were practically members of the family. A mother, daughter, brother and cousin all work there: whole families would come in, and little kids got trimmed for school or shorn with their summer haircuts. I’m pretty good about pulling out stories of the grandchildren who are similar ages to the little kids we’ve been meeting, and by the end I’m practically a gringo abuela in residence. In addition, when people learn our professions, I get asked questions about authors while Doug is asked for financial advice and his view of the world economic situation. And everywhere conversation — and headlines — turned to the earthquake in Chile which happened a few days ago.